Darrah Brustein is an author and two-time founder with a payment processing company spanning 38 states and a networking events company which serves 30,000+ people. She contributes to Forbes, Entrepreneur, and Thrive Global on networking, entrepreneurship and creating a life of your own design, and has been featured in over 300 press outlets including Time, CNN, Inc, Huffington Post, Fox, and Mashable (all built on the back of her network). She's on a mission to help others who are disenchanted with "sleep when you're dead" culture and chasing others people's definitions of success to build a life of their own design.

Shantel: Yeah, not at all. You're actually our first guest on two times.

Darrah: Oh, I thought you were saying your first guest ever in the first go. That's exciting. Go me.

| LIFE BY DESIGN, NOT BY DEFAULT |

Shantel: Yeah. I know. Welcome back. I'm glad that you're familiar with some of our listeners and what our whole concept is. But we're so excited to hear about what's been keeping you busy lately. I know you've started a lot of new projects, which I think is certainly very relevant to us busy entrepreneurs and their little bit of shiny object syndrome. So can you tell all the listeners a little bit more about specifically the virtual summit you have coming up, to start.

Darrah: Totally. So you mentioned shiny object syndrome and busy entrepreneurs, and I'm so glad that you had I have an understanding of that in common because it's exactly why I have what you're referencing, which is the virtual summit. It's called Life By Design, Not By Default, and it's an entirely online three day, totally free online conference that is designed for people like us who are often chasing the tail of success or chasing after things that when we look in the rear view mirror we realize, wow, life is just slipping us by, and I feel burned out or like I'm on this grind or on this wheel, and sometimes you stop and wonder, am I even living my own version of success, or am I just chasing what I'm told I should be doing. And through that process often, we look back and think, "Oh wow. What am I really doing?" So after kind of hitting that point in my life about 10 years ago, and even at different points as I've grown businesses over the last decade, I stopped and really thought, "Wow, there's got to be more to life than this. There's got to be a way that I don't just endlessly chase dollars and I don't endlessly chase accolades or any number of other things that you might consider to be success," which I at the time did as well. I was like the queen of checking the boxes. And so I thought, what if I use my life as a testing ground to figure out how life could look different and how it could be intentionally designed, or as we say, life by design, not by default. So to intentionally take the reins and get out of autopilot and stop living a status quo life, and really go beyond that. So, over the course of 10 years, I was able to learn a lot of tools and tricks and methodologies from mindset perspectives to ways to plan and vision, to ways that I would carve out my time and then build a network that really supported it, as well as businesses to finance it. But instead of allowing my businesses to take over and become the thing that was dictating how my time was spent, and I would fit my life in the nooks and crannies so to speak, I was able to flip it and say, what is the life I really want to live, and then how do I craft everything to fit within that and integrate. And so when I now look back 10 years ago, I think, wow, I learned a lot and I think it's worth sharing, which is why I created this virtual summit and invited all of my mentors and peers who helped me along the way to be among the 45 plus speakers over the course of the three days. And to give a little teaser, some of those speakers are people like Deepak Chopra, who's legendary, spiritual guru, Adam Grant who is viral TED speaker, New York Times Best Selling author of Give and Take among others, top rated Wharton professor. We've got Ronny Turiaf who is a two time Olympian and NBA champion. Kat Cole, who for anyone in Atlanta especially probably knows who Kat is because Kat is such a badass. She's COO of Focus Brands and former President of Cinnabon among a humanitarian and other things. And we've got Jen Sincero, who wrote You Are A Badass and You Are A Badass At Making Money talking especially in her case about how money is something that we think is so taboo or has so many negative associations attached to it, but how it really is this tool to catapult us into giving more in this world and doing more of the things that we want to do, so how do we make more of it and feel good about it.

Shantel: Jeez, I'm gonna feel like a badass just by being on the computer listening to all those people at the same time. That is an amazing lineup.

Darrah: Thank you. It's pretty amazing. I learned so much in just reconnecting with all of them and having these conversations with they and the 40 others, and I'm so pumped for people to get to hear it because whether you tune in for one session or many or all of them, there's just so much good stuff to take away.

Shantel: So, I'm gonna feel like such a dud if this answer is silly, or this question's silly, but is this the first of its kind, like a virtual summit, I've not heard of many of these. Have you been to a lot of virtual summits? How did that idea come about?

Darrah: Interestingly, I've never attended one, certainly never planned one. I know that they have existed, which is how I sort of began to generate the idea, but it's like many things in life that if you knew now what ... you know, like if you knew then what you know now that you might not have done it the same way, because going into it, I was like, "This can't be that hard." And then countless months later and many, many hours, and having to grow out a team and all of this stuff to make it work, I've learned, wow, this is such a mountain that I'm climbing that I didn't anticipate the challenges of. But like anything, you throw yourself in the deep end and you learn how to swim, and you learn a lot along the way.

Shantel: Do you anticipate, and now kind of so many hours in, seeing this become a business in itself, in your portfolio of other businesses?

Darrah: I don't know. I'm not sure, to be really transparent. I think ultimately my goal was to take these lessons and all of these amazing conversations I've had with these folks and make them more public and accessible, because I think it's kind of a travesty that we live in a culture that completely perpetuates the idea that we should hustle and grind and burnout, and that success is busyness, and that we say I'll be happy when blank happens, and then we get to blank, and we realize it doesn't feel any good, different or better, or we lose the glean of that really quickly, and so we keep chasing and chasing and chasing, and if we look backwards later in life, like when you talk to someone who's retired or someone who's on their deathbed, they'll generally tell you things that you intrinsically know are important, like relationships matter and what you give matters and how you show up day to day matters, but so few of us really carve out the time to live in alignment with those values. So, more than anything, it was important to me to get that message out there because I feel like if we have things to share, it's our obligation and responsibility to do that. And so that's where it came from, but will it become a business model? I have no idea. We'll see.

Shantel: Yeah, I can see just with the lineup and just with the thought behind the three days that it certainly could be, and there's so much information out there that at least I would like to continue to be able to tune into something like that. So if you want to just plant that seed-

Darrah: Well, thank you for planting that seed, 'cause there is one component where if folks can't tune in during the three days, or they are like, "Hey, I want to make this my master's degree in lifestyle design and have this to go with me into the future," because for me personally as an example, if I read a book or I listen to a podcast and I go back to it in let's say six months or a year, I show up in a different place on my journey and I take something away differently from it then. So, we've created a lifetime access pass for the summit, whereby you can buy all 20 hours of video and have access to it forever, whenever. So like to your point, Shan, if you wanted to be able to go back to something like that or keep learning from it, you could.

Shantel: Mm-hmm. No, that's good to know. That's great. So this may be kind of a taboo question 'cause you're planning this whole summit around life by design and not by default, but honestly, do you ever sometimes kinda get caught back up in that grind and feel like you're on autopilot or just let the stress overwhelm and take away from what you know is important or-

Darrah: Totally.

Shantel: ... okay.

Darrah: Yeah, no, it's such a fair question because I have this moment, like even last night, I had this moment where I'm thinking, wow, I'm sitting here on a mountaintop saying, "Hey everybody, live your life this way and don't get caught up in the other stuff," but I'm human and I still mess up. I spent so many years living and creating patterns and habits for myself of this grind mentality and hustle and burnout and just go, go, go, go, go ... that it's easy to fall back into that, and sometimes it feels really luring and feels really good. And so even with this summit and the production of it, it's funny, because I'll have those moments where I'm just working, working, working, and working so many hours, or feeling stressed because a deadline wasn't met or I'm not sure if XYZ is gonna pan out. Then I stop and kind of laugh at myself for that exact reason, like how ridiculous and hypocritical. I'm saying to do this, but we are all works in progress, and it would be silly of me to go around and pretend that I've mastered this at all moments at all times. But I am certainly striving to continue to live it more fully every day.

Shantel: Mm-hmm. Well let's talk a little bit if you don't mind sharing around boundaries that you've created, because I feel like so many people I'm talking to and guests on this show, I'm so interested in the way that they design their day to day, and I feel like a large part of kind of not getting in that overwhelm of being busy is just putting boundaries in place. Do you have any thoughts around boundaries, and if you do practice things like that, if you could share yes I don't check emails this time, or I unplug at this time, just anything that has helped you create a better cadence and ritual or habits.

| SET BOUNDARIES |

Darrah: I love the question because it's so important, and if we don't set boundaries for ourselves, then we let other people create them for us. It's something I've struggled with my entire adult life, if not probably my childhood as well, because even especially as a woman, we are often put in this mindset, and I hate to say it as male/female, but from my experience as a female, I often felt and still feel this need to please, and that often means being afraid to say no, or thinking that it's best for me to say yes to something to appease someone else or make them happy often at my own detriment. So there's a lot of things that I've done to set boundaries, and there's different ways I think they can work or not work for other people. But some are around time and calendaring. I've become pretty solid with the exception of things I feel really excited about and willing to break my own boundaries for, that in the morning I know that I need to sleep to a certain time because I'm a night owl. So typically, I don't get up till about 8:30, and then I like to kinda like chill in bed for a minute and read some news, and breathe and kind of ease into the morning. And then I'll meditate for about 20 minutes, and then I will chug a glass of water and get my day started. Really I know I should be eating there. That's something that someone should maybe add if they're gonna listen to this schedule verbatim. But then I dive in. And while most people would say to you, "Don't jump in to your email," I do because it actually helps me to feel on top of my stuff and not behind. I get into my email, I spend the morning, some portion doing that. If I have calls, I typically try to make those late morning to early afternoon, and then try to make meetings or [swaffs 00:11:48] of free time in the afternoon so that I can write and do more creative work or longer term planning and visioning. And then if I don't have something going on that evening or I want to, I'm gonna typically plan some sort of physical thing like getting out and walking or doing acro-yoga, or being with friends, or something in the evening that's gonna take me away from work in a traditional sense for the most part. And so I've kind of created this rhythm for myself around time and schedule, and I don't break that up. Like if someone says to me, "Let's have a morning meeting," unless you're Oprah or you're someone that I'm just feeling like I'm willing to change this boundary because it's so critical or important or I'm just so, so excited about it, the answer will be no because there's generally another time that we can meet that helps me with my rhythm and my flow and keeps my boundaries safe. Because ultimately, I think even if it's not that big of a deal to break it, you just kind of have to check yourself and think, if I'm breaking the boundary, what is that saying to me about myself? Like if I'm telling me that I'm not gonna do it, and then I do, I'm breaking a promise to myself and I don't want to. Another thing around saying no is just knowing and believing that no is a complete sentence and that it's okay to say no, and that all you can do is control your intention and you cannot control someone's reaction. And this is something I still consistently struggle with because I want to make sure that they understand or that they're not hurt or anything like that, but to try and understand that you can't take things personally and other people hopefully won't take things personally because all you're doing is giving them an answer to a question, and that no is completely appropriate. Another way that I have been able to say no, like for example, you probably get this a lot Shan, whether it's younger entrepreneurs asking you if they can pick your brain, or someone saying, "Hey, I need help in my career. Will you do XYZ for me," of someone hearing the podcast and wanting advice on how to start one, or whatever the thing might be, that in some cases you might say yes to, in other cases you might say no to. One, it's your choice to figure out where your boundaries are on that, and then choose when you stick to it and when you don't. And then two, if those are often over email or LinkedIn or wherever they show up, I've created some general prompts and templates for myself that I store either in an Evernote or in I use Mixmax embedded over in my Gmail, and it has a templates folder for emails that pop right into my email, where I have a no template. And I based it off of one that I got from Brene Brown because I reached out to her asking for something and one of her teammates sent me what I thought was truly the best no response I've ever gotten. And it's something along the lines of, you know, explaining to the person, giving them kudos or a pat on the back or whatever for whatever it is that they're doing that they reached out for and acknowledging it, and then explaining, whether it's you or having an assistant do it if you are lucky enough to have an assistant, and explain to them, "Hey, this is what the priorities are right now," so Brene at the time, I think she said, "Brene's right now focused on three things, which are her family, her research, and being a professor, and anything that falls outside of that right now we have to say no to." And then wish them best of luck so it doesn't feel like a completely closed door or like you're really shoving the door in their face, and have a friendly sign off and that's it. It just felt like such a way that I was told no, it was very clear, but I also didn't feel brushed off and nor was I ignored, 'cause I think that's often most people's reaction is let me just ignore them. And that's your call, but it's usually not my preference. I'd rather at least acknowledge you and be treating you as how I would like to be treated. So, those are just a couple ways that I've created boundaries.

Shantel: I mean, that's just so respectful too. It would be so well received, and like, oh, I respect that so much. It probably makes you want to talk to that person even more because-

Darrah: Exactly.

Shantel: ... wow. I loved what you mentioned about the breaking the promise to yourself if you break those boundaries. I have completely struggled with that. I've plugged in reoccurring things, like I will go to yoga Monday, Wednesday, Friday at this time, and if a client wants to meet, I'm like, "No problem." Or I've started to block off, and again, this isn't working yet for me and I'm working on it, but blocking off, okay, I'm gonna hold this time slot to answer emails, just because otherwise I'll find myself late at night because I've been in back to back meetings, but that really resonated with me, because I think I didn't have that context before and I always felt like oh, well I have to because they're the client or always excuses for it, but now I'm going to have ... Thank you for mentioning that because I feel like now I have this almost ammunition of like, well shit, no, I'm breaking it to myself now, and that has a different meaning. So I'm glad you shared that.

Darrah: Yeah, thanks for echoing that, 'cause I think it's really odd, but so easy for us, I do it myself, to be so effortful around treating other people respectfully, and then often don't reflect it back to ourselves.

Shantel: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I also, and I don't know if this helps any of the listeners or if you've seen anything like this, and you may have a completely different opinion on it, which I'd love to have that conversation if so, but I added just a little one line sentence in my email signature at the very bottom, and it's just kind of a fun and a little bit quirky, but it says something like, "PS. I love meeting with people. Most of my days are focused around that, so I only intentionally carve out time once a day to check emails, and I don't have my notifications turned on. So if is pressing, just keep that in mind." And I don't know what the ... how people have felt about it, but it has at least helped me feel a little bit at ease if I don't respond to something right away, because then I'm setting a different expectation, and again, not quite sure what your thoughts are in there, but I would love to hear them.

Darrah: I love that. For a while I remember getting a lot of bounce back emails from people that were similar saying I only check emails between 8:00 and 9:00 and 5:00 and 6:00, so if it's anywhere outside of those hours and it's urgent, call me or find me some other way. But it's true, we really have this expectation that people are always available, and I hold myself to that. I try to be as available as possible, but even if it is just for yourself that you can give yourself that peace of mind saying hey I put it out there. So, I travel about half of every month, and I do it primarily for pleasure, but I work as I go, and I very rarely put up an away responder unless I'm on like a 10 hour flight or in some sort of environment where I'm not gonna be readily available to someone to respond. And no one ever cares, it simply just gives me that peace of mind like you're referring to, where you know, hey, I've put the expectation out there and created the boundary, and now people know that, and then you can kind of rest at east a little bit.

Shantel: Yeah, absolutely. I'd love to switch gears a little bit and just talk about your network specifically. I know we've talked offline a little bit about the structure of the virtual summit, and I know one day specifically is a heavy focus on that, but I'd love to pick your brain on how ... You have another business completely on this, so we can talk a lot about that, but on network, how you secured these types of speakers. I mean, yeah. Any context around that on growing a business and connecting that you would want to share with our listeners?

| THE PEOPLE YOU SURROUND YOURSELF WITH MATTER |

Darrah: I love this question 'cause it's one where my brain starts to go into a frenzy thinking, "Oh my god, how do I narrow down my like..." 'cause for anyone who has never heard of me, which is probably all of you, I write for Forbes on networking. I have a 30,000 person community in business. I started to help people connect and network, so this is like what I live and breathe, and there's so much to it, but I'd say foundationally, I truly believe that the people that you surround yourself with matter, that they elevate you, they keep you plateaued, or they bring you down. And it has nothing to do with whether ... it's no judgment on them, but the people around you deeply influence who you are today and who you will become, and it is your job to be intentional about curating who those people are and how much you let their energy impact you and how much time you dedicate to being with them. And again, this is not saying that you're ranking people or anything, but it's just a matter of elevating yourself. Shan, you and I, I think have this experience together, that we met many years ago as young female entrepreneurs in Atlanta and gravitated towards each other because we knew as women in a similar stage of life trying to achieve similar things, how important it would be to surround ourselves with people like each other who would help by pulling us along when things were hard or helping to share ideas and resources, or just even being on the same course and understanding implicitly without words what that was like. So I think fundamentally, that's just a big part of it, and ultimately, I think one of the things that we struggle with as a society right now is loneliness. And the more that we feel connected through virtual platforms, the less evidence is showing we actually feel connected and the less lonely that we feel. So I think it's really important to be very intentional about going out and building meaningful connections and relationships, as well as having more tertiary relationships to help you and help you grow, because there are studies like the study of weak ties that talks about how in life and in business, the way you get jobs, the way you get clients, the way a lot of things happen is not necessarily through your immediate connections or your closest connections, but it's through the second or third degree connections, or the ones that you met one time for 10 minutes at a cocktail party, and then circled back to and they opened a door. And it's fascinating to consider it that way because you'd think, oh, well, he and I are best friends, so he's gonna be the one. But interestingly enough, it's often the closest people to you that don't think of you in those ways, or you know too much about each other to have the full confidence to make the introductions or do what needs to be done. So it's often those weak ties that really matter. So my point in saying all that is to say, be developing and nurturing relationships both in your inner circle of like your top five for the people you're gonna spend the most time with, because they're gonna be the ones that most deeply influence the level of success you have as well as the level of happiness you have, and then beyond that in studies talk about a circle of about 50 people beyond that and about 100 beyond that is about the max ties you can really be in touch with at any given time. Be considerate of who they are and house keep them and be intentional in your follow-up and conversation and communication with them.

Shantel: Yeah.

Darrah: So yeah, bottom line, that. And to your question I guess about how did I create an event with a lot of these big name people, I guess the beginning of it is really just to say that anyone can access anyone. There are studies that talk about us being less than four degrees ... I believe it's 3.74 degrees of separation away from anyone on the planet. This was a study done by the University of Milan and Facebook scientists in tandem. And it's pretty incredible, because we've always assumed, okay, it's six degrees of separation or Kevin Bacon, it's what we've heard anecdotally. And the more that we've become connected digitally, the more that we see we're only these four degrees or less, on average, from anyone we want to get to. It's an experiment I ran with myself years ago when I heard that study and I thought, huh, I wonder how far I am from people I really admire, like Oprah or Tony Hsieh who's the CEO of Zappos, or Sarah Blakely, or any number of other people. And I realized at the time that I was one degree of separation from all of them, and it only took a little bit of digging on LinkedIn to figure that out. And I think it's so encouraging to anyone who's listening to think like, who's the person you really feel like you need to know or that you'd want to know, and to recognize that we have so many tools at our disposal to demonstrate to us the chain to get there. But then it's really a matter of what do you do when you get there. So using the summit as an example, I had a wish list of maybe 20 or 30 people that are pretty household name or really important thought leaders in books that I've read or things that I ingest myself in content and growth material, and I was like, gosh, there's no way I'm gonna get to these people. And Deepak was one of them, as was Adam Grant. And looking at that list, I was just like, there is no way little old me is gonna get to these people. And it really just took some intention and some asking, and doing it from a place of ... Let me say it this way. Ultimately, I think often what people do wrong is they approach people the wrong way. They go for the jugular and they say like, "I know you have access to this one really important connection, and I need it," because people are going to hold those pretty tightly. But you know, having already built relationships with people who had relationships with the folks I was looking for, it made it so much easier. So for example, Deepak's former COO is one of my close girlfriends, and I actually didn't want to ask her at first, and as it turned out, Deepak's PR team reached out to me before I reached out to her, so at that point, I simply reached out to Rebecca and I said, "Listen, we haven't gotten a confirmed yes. It would mean a lot if you could just put in a good word." She did, and the next morning I had a confirmation that Deepak was in. Same thing. Adam had a graduate student who I went to undergrad with, and I had started a movement last summer called Give it Forward with the intention to empower a million people to give in some way with no strings attached every day for 30 days. And this woman Erica that I went to school with was a part of it, and she reached out to me and said, "This sounds so up Adam's alley. Are you familiar with his work?" I said, "Adam is the person whose work I quote the most in everything that I do, because I so deeply believe in it and it meant so much to me to see his scientific research to back up my anecdotal knowledge." And she said, "Why don't I introduce you," and opened the door. So at that point, really what it takes is coming to the table knowledgeable, having done your research, not asking questions or asking for things that you could just find in a quick Google search, and letting that person know that you value and respect their time. And that's where relationships are really going to build from when there feels like there's a disweightedness, where you're coming in seeking something.

Shantel: Well, I mean, kind of going back to what you first said about just when we met a while ago, I certainly have the same sentiments and thoughts on that, and I think it's so much around who you surround yourself with. But kind of that last piece that you just mentioned about, you know, they were on your top list of who you wanted to be a part of this, and it all kind of just came together, naturally with a lot of hard work of course, but do you believe in the power of visualization and really putting it out there to people that these are your goals and aspirations? Because it almost sounds like they were on your list, you had already been thinking about it, and then it all started to kind of come together very organically.

Darrah: Yeah, absolutely. So all of this type of stuff I talk about and teach about, I feel like I am the person who doesn't feel super gravitating towards what I'd call like woo-woo and like feels really ethereal and hard to wrap your head around. So I want to say this in a way that is not off-putting to people because that's how I approach it. And that is simply, if your audience hasn't read the Alchemist, I'd recommend reading it because it's a really good embodiment of this concept, that when you do put words to what you truly desire as the Alchemist or Paulo Coelho, the author, says, the universe conspires in your favor for it. And I believe that to be true because I've experienced it, and not because I'm sitting in a room writing wish lists and hoping. It's intention meets action. I'm working in a direction to go towards it, but ultimately what I have come to find is that when you have an intention and it has really good, positive stuff behind it, that it's not selfish, it's not takery, it's not manipulative, it's none of those things, something like the summit that's really about paying it forward and offering resources and good will to other people, that people are gonna get on board with that, and that energy is gonna flow in that direction. So, that's what I found honestly. Ultimately, that's really that simple. A tangible example of it outside of the summit is I wrote a kids book years ago, and it was a really painful experience in the sense that like, anyone who's not written a book will be like, what are you talking about. Anyone who's written a book is probably like laughing and shaking their heads because it's kind of masochistic to write a book. It's so much work, it's never-ending, it's so many years of writing and editing and then promoting and marketing, and it's a lot. And after that I was like, oh gosh, I don't know if I have another one in me. And then this past fall I said to myself, you know what, I feel like things are aligning and telling me that it's time to write another book. And the second I said to myself I'm gonna write a New York Times Best Seller, and then I said it out loud, I had meetings with five agents within the next week, I had offers from four of them, someone to help me write the book just presented themselves, this idea of the summit came, which really was in tandem to the book concept. Everything just started to unfold. And it doesn't mean that there was no effort. It doesn't mean there weren't hard moments. It doesn't mean I just snapped my fingers and everything fell into place. But what I have tended to find is that when things are moving with the current, that's the direction that I should be going in and I keep swimming that way. When things feel like I am swimming upstream and nothing is clicking, that's when I tend to find that I need to pivot and go in another direction and see where the current really is taking me. Same thing with these intentions and visions.

Shantel: Absolutely. I mean, also I think hearing those things though, it sounds like, and I'm sure a ton of the listeners can relate, that it just takes determination and extreme focus, and you have to be self-motivated, because once you put it out there and you commit to it yourself, I mean kind of like what you said before, you don't want to let yourself down. And I imagine that's a little bit of the competitive nature in us coming out, and I think that's really fascinating. I have one more quick question for you to wrap things up, Darrah. But in starting another big project or a series of a lot of other big projects like the book and the summit, is there one big takeaway or something that you've learned in starting another kind of tentacle to your brand and your business that you could share with other entrepreneurs wanting to start another piece too?

Darrah: Well, I guess the first thing that comes to mind is you don't have to pick one thing. That's a lie that we have been fed for a long time, that you can have one job, you can have one title, you can have one primary interest, and I just wholeheartedly disagree with that. I've talked about this kids book, I've talked about a new book, I've talked about this summit, I've talked about the networking business, I have a credit card processing company. And it can be confusing to other people, but frankly who cares. I grow from them, I'm offering positive things through these services to the world, and that's what matters. So I think don't be afraid of trying something different or new that doesn't seem to make a lot of sense on paper or to other people. You get to write your own story and you get to craft the through line. For me, it's all about connection. Connection of people, connection of resources, connection of ideas for the betterment of everyone and to get them to their goals faster. But that's for me to know, and not everyone's gonna get that or understand that. So I'd say that first and foremost, and then like you talked about perseverance. I think that's something that we really don't talk about enough, that we celebrate the big successes, we celebrate the rags to riches, the I had the business in my garage and three months later I sold it for a billion dollars. And so infrequently do we talk about the challenges or do we talk about the persistence and perseverance that really are what mattered because it was the person in most cases who woke up and consistently and rhythmically worked on the business or the goal or whatever, day in and day out, that made the progress, built the relationships, did what they needed to do to get them to the outcome that we later celebrated. That really makes the difference. So I'd say, don't be undermining or discouraging yourself from putting in that hard work and being consistent and persistent. Don't be afraid of being a multi hyphenate, multi passionate person. And ultimately, I think that things that excite you are things that you should pay attention to. It doesn't have to be your business. It doesn't have to be full-time, but those things are the things that give you energy, and then you have more energy to pour into other stuff, whether it's other parts of your life or your business. So, pay attention.

Shantel: Wow. Thank you for sharing that, and I think I speak for everyone listening and everyone that's gonna be hearing about the summit, but thank you for putting this together, and I'm so excited, and even just kind of the goal that you had initially just to share all of this content, speaks to exactly what we were talking about today in that you're just sharing with everyone. And that's what you're passionate about, and it's wonderful. So thank you for putting it on and putting it together, and also being a guest on the show. How can we learn more about the virtual summit and tune in when it's all set up?

Darrah: Thank you. I'd love for you and everyone else to tune in and glean what you may. The website is lifebydesignsummit.com and you can get your free tickets there.

Shantel: Wonderful. Well, thanks again for carving out the time to connect, and we can't wait to ... we'll have to have you on again in the next few months when you start something else. Yes.

Imagine More Podcast

This weekly podcast is about the people that IMAGINE MORE and the ripple effect they have on the people around them!

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